HEALTHCARE

Americans Are Drowning in Medical Debt

Healthcare costs are killing our finances, and our futures.

Americans are in dire straights from medical debt. (Photo by Luca Nardone from Pexels)

Politics aside, the healthcare costs in the US are criminally expensive, dissuading many to seek the care they desperately need.

In 2009, then-professor Elizabeth Warren co-authored a paper about the cause of bankruptcies. Medical debt was high on the list, and many people, including the now-senator, have used that to claim that the number one cause of all personal bankruptcies was medical debt.

That claim has been toned down a bit by further research, but medical costs are still elevated far beyond those of other industrialized nations. And real-life experience has taught us to be wary of any medical procedures, knowing that multiple bills from multiple providers will arrive in our mailbox.

But just how bad is it for for American families? Two recent studies have shone some light on the problem, and it doesn’t look good.

Medical Debt is Everywhere

The first study is found in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) entitled “Medical Debt in the US, 2009-2020”. The goal was to find the “total amount and distribution of medical debt in collections in the US.”